On Conscience and Conscience Formation

by

Frits Albers Ph.B

 

[The AMAIC was involved with its own ‘Submissions’ to the Oceanic Synod in December 1998. This article by Frits Albers, co-founder of the AMAIC, recalls for us the sad state of affairs in the Australian Church at this time, which Paul Brazier, too, was then so energetically addressing. – Editor].

INTRODUCTION:

CONSCIENCE AND THE AUSTRALIAN BISHOPS

Even before the Oceanic Synod in December 1998 got off the ground, the Holy See wasted no time in using the opportunity of pointing out to the assembled Australian bishops the serious defects that over the years had developed within the Catholic Church in their country, affecting the Faith of millions of individual Catholics. For all future generations it will remain a shameful indictment of the Australian Episcopal Conference that, in the second half of the twentieth century, the initiative had to come from Rome, and that the Holy See had to acquaint the bishops of Australia with the well-nigh impossible situation that was still going on unchecked, because the shepherds of the flock were either not aware of what was going on, or did not have the courage to use their authority to stem the tide.

The “Statement of Conclusions”, drawn up after a four-day meeting between representatives of six Sacred Congregations of the Roman Curia and a group of Australian bishops, clearly deals with:

• a “Crisis of Faith” within the Church in Australia. It points to
• a “Crisis of Christology”,
• a “profound change of anthropology”,
• a concerted effort to “raise the individual conscience to an absolute”.

Following on from these profound changes in Catholic Faith, the Statementidentifies:

• the existence of “great problems to Christian morality”,
• indifference to the poor,
• racial prejudice and violence,
• abortion,
• euthanasia,
• the legitimation of homosexual relationships and other immoral forms of sexual activity.

And if all this was not enough, the ‘Statement’ has uncovered the existence of

• “Problems in Ecclesiology” [clearly a matter of ‘one ‘church’ or faith being as good as another’] “that flow from the above-mentioned uncertainties concerning God and Jesus Christ”.

In a word: these are defects so obvious and profound, that every bishop could have noticed them from his own observation, or at least could have become aware of their existence if only he had believed the thousands of letters through which good Catholics had never ceased to bring these defects to his attention.

Now one thing has become very clear after all these years of utter chaos and confusion: If the bishops and priests of Australia after the Second Vatican Council had been brought up on a Theology that had been firmly grounded on the “Everlasting Philosophy” of St. Thomas Aquinas, they would never have failed to isolate all that Rome had to hold up to them. Then, after the accurate reading of “the signs of the times”, they would have found in that same philosophy and theology the means of combating the evils that were creeping in long before they got out of hand as they are now. Instead, they handed over the effective running of their dioceses to the worst kinds of feminists and modernists who strongly advised them that their advice was born out of Vatican II ....

In present-day Catholic Australia, we of the Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception, not being able to deal with all that Rome has demanded should be rectified, can deal only with isolated topics. The one chosen for this paper is the question of conscience which the Holy See has brought to the notice of the Australian bishops for their urgent attention in the following words, taken from Number 6 of the Statement:-

• Challenges to Christian Anthropology.

Behind the above-mentioned elements is a profound paradigmatic change in anthropology that is opposed to classical anthropology. It is characterised, for example, by an extreme individualism, seen especially in a concept of conscience that elevates the individual conscience to the level of an absolute, thus raising the subjective criterion above all objective factors and having no point of reference beyond itself. Another example is a change in the relations between creation, nature, body and spirit, resulting in certain forms of feminism which express an anthropology profoundly different from classical anthropology.

From the chaos in Catholic affairs that lies so eloquently expressed in the drawn-up Statement of Conclusions, one other conclusion is inescapable:

the priests and future bishops of post-Conciliar Australia have not been brought up on a Theology that has for its foundation the Everlasting Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. That this constitutes a deliberate flouting of a serious command issued from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church can be seen from the following words:-

“In view of all this it is not surprising that the Church will have Her future Priests brought up on a Philosophy which derives its methods, its system and its basic principles from the Angelic Doctor.” (Can. 1366, 2 in the old CJC).

In view of all what?

In view of...

‘Aeterni Patris’, Pope Leo XIII, Aug. 1,1879, Encyclical;
‘Doctoris Angelici’, Pope St. Pius X, June 29, 1914, Motu Proprio;
‘Quod de fovenda’, Pope Benedict XV, Mar. 19, 1917, Letter to Jesuits;
‘Studiorum Ducem’, Pope Pius XI, June 29, 1923, Encyclical;
‘Directive of the Sacred Congregation of Studies’, Mar. 7, 1916;
and further extensive directives contained in two encyclicals
‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’, Pope St. Pius X, Sep. 8, 1907, and
‘Humani Generis’, Pope Pius XII, Aug. 12, 1950.

“One thing is clearly established by the long experience of the ages: his teaching appears to chime in by a kind of pre-established harmony with Divine Revelation. No surer way to safeguard the First Principles of the Faith.”

[‘Humani Generis’].

“Let the Academies already founded or to be founded by you (the bishops) illustrate and defend this doctrine and use it for the refutation of prevailing errors ... Be careful to guard the minds of youth from those fountains which are said to flow from St. Thomas, but in reality are gathered from strange and polluted streams.”

[‘Aeterni Patris’].

“... gathered from strange and polluted streams”. How relevant this still is on the eve of the year 2000 can be gathered from one of those ‘strange streams’, the Geelong [in Victoria] deanery. In its ‘Geelong Deanery Digest’, Vol. 19, June 1999, we can read the following headline: “Promising Start for New Venture in Ecumenical Theological Education in Geelong”.

This “polluted stream” leads to a ‘Bachelor of Theology’ degree and going by the glowing letter of recommendation from the pen of Mgr. James Murray, PP of St. Mary of the Angels, this course “is a combined venture of the Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran and Uniting Churches”. The letter further states:

“I strongly recommend this venture to you [Msgr. is speaking directly to Catholics here], and I hope and pray that a number of Catholics will avail themselves of this great opportunity to study theology”.

What hope have they got ...!

“... reason borne on the wings of Thomas to its human height, can scarcely rise higher while Faith could scarcely expect stronger aids from reason than those it has already obtained through Thomas. His teachings are such that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and they who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.”

[‘Aeterni Patris.’]

“Always” includes June, 1999...

“If Catholic Doctrine is once deprived of this strong bulwark, it is useless to seek the slightest assistance for its defence in a philosophy whose principles are either common to the errors of materialism, monism, pantheism, socialism and modernism, or certainly not opposed to such systems. The reason is that the capital theses in the Philosophy of St. Thomas are not to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated one way or the other, but are to be considered as the foundation upon which the whole science of natural and Divine things is based. If such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in which the Dogmas of Divine Revelation are proposed by the Magisterium of the Church.” [‘Doctoris Angelici’].

Are these words written for post-Conciliar Australia or not?

Do they accurately describe (with maybe two exceptions) ‘theology’ in the Australian seminaries and the Geelong deanery of today?

Oh sure, the majority of those who leave those seminaries and courses have carved out for themselves a cosy niche in the contemporary pagan world, but from that niche – as the Statement of Conclusions so vividly depicts – they will neither save their own soul nor those of others. Maybe here is the place to use a quote which sums up all the foregoing. It is a testimony by two opponents, Bucer and Theodore Beza, incorporated by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical ‘Aeterni Patris’:-

“If the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily do battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory and abolish the Church.”

This is not an exaggerated description of Catholic life in Australia in the year 1999, the Year of the Eternal Father, Aeterni Patris ... As can be seen from the above quote, it is rampant in Geelong and in numerous other places in Australia. This shows that overwhelming evidence is available from Papal documents, from the ‘Statement of Conclusions’ and from our own daily experience, that the vast majority of Catholic bishops in Australia have notbeen brought up on the philosophy and the theology of St. Thomas.

The opponents ‘have done battle with Catholic teachers; they have gained a major victory and have abolished most of Catholic life in this country’. And if Pope St. Pius X is right, then it will be “useless to seek the slightest assistance for its defence” in other ‘philosophies’. And to make the point of this particular lecture crystal clear: it will be equally useless to expect from non-Thomists sound teaching on the subject of Conscience. Thus, as anything of lasting value can hardly be expected to come from the Hierarchy in Australia in the present state of utter confusion and paralysis, we may as well ourselves do what the Holy See has demanded should be done: the urgent correction of so many erroneous consciences found to be prevalent amongst Catholics in this country.

The subject will be approached first from Thomistic Philosophy and then from the Theology built on that. ....

[For the rest, go to: http://members.iinet.net.au/~raphael/ph_1_1.html]